In an interview with Exame magazine in 2020, Gilmar Lopes reported that he received email chains in 2002.[2] One of them claimed that for every forwarded message, a child would receive 5 or 50 cents, allegedly from an America Online donation.[2] Before forwarding it, he decided to investigate, contacted the company, and confirmed that the information was false.[2] From then on, his friends began challenging him to verify the truthfulness of other emails, and he started compiling these analyses in one place.[2] The E-farsas website was launched on April 1, 2002 (April Fools' Day).[2]
The website collaborated with the program Você é Curioso? on Rádio Bandeirantes, and the site's creator hosted a segment called Verdadeiro ou Farsa ("True or Hoax") on the same radio station, where he answered listeners' questions about news that had spread online during the week.[3] The website also became an interview program on JusTV between 2008 and 2010.[1] In 2019, Gilmar Lopes and the science communicator Pirula launched the segment Fake em Nóis on the MOV.show channel of the video production company MOV [pt] from the UOL website.[4]
Starting in 2020, the website established a partnership with the Superior Electoral Court to combat disinformation during Brazilian elections.[5] In 2024, Gilmar Lopes published the book Caçador de Mentiras ("Lies Hunter"). According to the website, the book "talks about the charlatans who make rivers of money from self-help courses and lectures. Self-help, which, by the way, doesn’t 'self-help' anyone, except for the charlatans who only sell self-help courses that teach how to sell courses on how to get rich by selling courses."[6][7]
